


blood on the snow

by Dualscar



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-21
Updated: 2013-04-05
Packaged: 2017-12-06 00:44:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/729725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dualscar/pseuds/Dualscar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Suoh Mikoto is incorrigible in some aspects, as Reisi has grown to discover, but what bothers him most is how Suoh always has to shed blood. Sometimes his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 5 years old

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: K and all its characters belong to GoRA. I merely weave tales.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please keep in mind that in this first chapter, they are in an orphanage+school of sorts. I tried to keep the language simple in this chapter for obvious reasons.

It was only a tiny misstep, but the carefully shaped ball of snow fell from his fingers with a dull _thunk_. His mouth contorted to form a small ‘O’ and he glanced repeatedly between his gloved hands and the misshapen blob at his feet.

That was going to be his little snowman’s head. He felt his eyes grow uncomfortably warm and prickly. Hurriedly, he dabbed at them with the back of his hand and sniffed before kneeling to gather the fallen snow in his hands again and make another ball. Something told him he had to work fast, or the lady with the loud voice would come usher everyone in the playground inside to eat.

Wasn’t today Monday? They would be feeding him lots more vegetables, then. He didn’t mind. He liked vegetables and didn’t understand why everyone at his table made a huge fuss when they had to eat them. What he didn’t like was when they told him to eat quicker. Couldn’t they see that it took him time to chew all the food properly? He remembered when he was younger and someone had scolded him for taking too long to eat his food, and he remembered being scared of that person ever since; didn’t she have red hair? Another time, a girl with red hair had elbowed him in the playground and laughed at him. He had told her off bravely, and then the lady with the loud voice had scolded her too, but when he went back to his room, he couldn’t stop the tears from falling.

Maybe all people with red hair were rude. He quickly glanced at the gate of the playground and didn’t see the lady anywhere in sight, so he stood up, his legs trembling with the effort to keep himself steady as he lifted the new ball to give his snowman a head. This time, no snow fell off, and he was very happy. Now all he had to do was find stones for eyes; he already had the twigs from when he had snapped them off a little bush. One of them was shorter than the other and it didn’t quite look right. He wanted a new one, but he already felt guilty enough for taking the twigs from the bush because he knew it wasn’t good to hurt plants like that.

It was really difficult to see any stones what with this thick white blanket of snow everywhere. Even though it hadn’t snowed for a while now, the snow that was already there didn’t seem like it was going to melt any time soon. He let out a small sigh and after carefully scanning the area for anyone who might try to destroy his snowman, he decided it was time to go on a little stone-hunting adventure. As fast as his feet could take him – he was not a very good runner anyway – he ran around the playground, his eyes roving and trying to spot any possible candidates for eyes.

He gave up after what he thought was thirty minutes, and automatically looked back at the playground gate again – the lady hadn’t come. _Oh_. Maybe it wasn’t thirty minutes after all. His face falling because of his failure, he plodded back to his lonely snowman with no face. “Sorry,” he said to it. “I didn’t find eyes for you.” He’d pass the time by giving it arms instead, he thought. But when he picked up the twigs, he heard someone saying something to him.

 _The lady?! Oh no…_ But when he looked up, he saw only a little kid with a shock of red hair falling all over his face. Immediately, he clenched his fist and backed away. He knew this boy; he was in another class, but everyone in their grade knew all the trouble he got himself into. One time when he had been passing by the principal’s office, he swore he had seen that boy inside, and he heard the teachers talking about “playing with fire”. He had been so shocked he had broken into a run.

The boy was saying something, but it didn’t make sense. “What?”

“I said, what are you doing.” His voice was defiant and bold, and Reisi wasn’t sure he would be able to answer satisfactorily.

“Making snowmen,” he replied, and noticed how his own voice was much softer than the other boy’s. What would he do? Would he hit him just like that other girl had, long ago? He knew what to do if someone caused him trouble. He had to try not to cry, because all his friends said only girls cried, and then he had to go call the lady with the loud voice and tell her what the boy had done to him. Then she’d ask Reisi if he was alright, and she would tell the boy off and make him apologize.

He knew what to do, but the boy just stood there, blinking at the small snowman. Reisi felt color rush to his cheeks – did he think it was stupid; that he had not made it right?

“It doesn’t have eyes,” he finally spoke.

“Yeah, I’m going to find some for it.” After some hesitation, he asked, louder, “You’re Suoh Mikoto, right?”

The boy turned his attention to him, but it was really funny how he did that. It was slow and unhurried, and he took his time to respond, too. “Yeah. You?”

“I’m – I’m Munakata Reisi, from class 1-A.”

Suoh didn’t have anything to say to that. Instead, he looked at the snowman again, and Reisi looked at him. Maybe he was thinking about something. After another long pause, which Reisi was already used to from him, Suoh said, “I know where you can get stones.”

Reisi opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. Did he really know or was he lying? Maybe he was lying; a lot of the kids he knew were liars, even though he was always honest to them. They were taught to be honest anyway, and he didn’t know why only some kids listened, but he knew that lying was the cool thing to do. Whenever he told the truth, all his friends called him a “goody-two-shoes”. Once he had tried lying, but no one believed him and they just laughed. He hated to lie, anyway.

He held out a hand, and Reisi saw – the teachers had told him he was very observant, and that he noticed a lot of things; he liked being called that – that he had many scratches on it. He swallowed, and didn’t take his hand.

“Where?” Suoh simply pointed to the small gate behind the slides, and looked back at Reisi impatiently. Reisi was shocked. They were not allowed to go anywhere near that gate, because it was a playground rule, and playground rules shouldn’t be broken. Else they wouldn’t be allowed to play. Besides, that big kid Kusanagi who sometimes told them stories had once whispered that a ghost might just live there, but the adults didn’t want to tell them that. To prove it, he had even taken some of the kids there and pointed it out to them from behind the bars of the gate. Reisi hadn’t gone, because he didn’t believe in ghosts anyway.

But it was wrong to go there. “We can’t go there,” he said, boldly. “We’re not allowed.”

Suoh exhaled, and Reisi could see a frown appearing on his face. “So what? You want your stones, right?”

“Yes – no, no, it’s fine. I can find them somewhere else.” Suoh didn’t seem to like that Reisi wasn’t listening to him, and even Reisi was proud of himself for standing up to Suoh. No one usually dared to say anything to his face because they were all scared he would hit them.

“…it’s because of that dumb ghost story, then.”

“No!”

Suoh sighed. “That Izumo is a liar. I’ll talk to him. You come with me.”

Kusanagi was a liar, too? How did he know? He didn’t think he would ever try to cheat him like that, and he felt bad for letting himself getting tricked. He would go talk to Kusanagi, too, and tell him how his story was fake.

“Are you sure? Are you going to get us in trouble?” He felt Suoh’s ungloved hand tug at his arm, before he responded with a “No”. The frown was growing deeper, but Reisi didn’t feel very scared. After all, Suoh was just a kid who never studied and who everyone was scared of, while he, Reisi, was liked by all the teachers, got good grades, and never got into any trouble because he always followed rules. There was no reason to be scared of this boy who never listened to anyone.

So he followed him cautiously, sparing a glance for the snowman which had patiently stood there, unmoving and faceless, while the two of them had talked. He hoped no one would kick it over, but no one probably would. He had taken care to make it somewhere most of the kids didn’t come by anyway.

In front of him, Suoh walked steadily to the gate. Like the other gates of the playground, it was painted brown and white, but in this one, the white looked more like gray, and the paint was peeling in many places. Suoh tried pushing it with one hand, but it didn’t so much as budge.

“It’s locked,” he commented.

Suoh shot him a look. “I know.” Saying so, he deftly slid his arm in between the wooden slats of the gate and appeared to be fiddling with something, while Reisi watched him quietly. He looked like he had done this a lot of times. A few minutes later, when Suoh was still messing with what he now knew was the lock, Reisi spoke up.

“If it’s locked, it means we’re not supposed to go in there. Stop it. I don’t want the stones.” But by the time he’d finished saying that, the redhead had already let the lock fall down with a clatter. He looked at him oddly, and then rubbed his head while saying, “Look, the lock already had a key in it; I’ve done this before…” But when Reisi continued to look reluctant, he continued, “We’ll just get your stones and then I’ll lock it up again, okay?”

Reisi blinked at him incredulously. “You can do that?” So far, he had only been nice to him. Funnily enough, he was the only red-haired person who he remembered being nice to him. Suoh only chuckled in response, before pushing the gate open and looking behind him before entering the place Reisi had never dreamed of entering, or even wanting to enter.

He was very surprised to see that there were just a lot of piles of junk, all of them with little hats of snow atop them. There was also a broken seesaw and a pogo ride with its spring jutting out accusingly at him. He avoided it, because it looked like he could snag his clothes on it and get hurt.

Suoh didn’t look like he was surprised or even interested in any of these things. He knew it was because he had come here a lot of times before. “Get your stones,” he said, suddenly, and Reisi was irritated because that was what he was doing anyway. He realized that the reason there weren’t any stones to be seen in the playground was because the adults had probably cleared them all away so no one would get hurt by throwing them at others. Here, though, there were enough stones for all the snowmen he wanted to make. Kneeling down, he made sure he wasn’t getting any of his clothes dirty before carefully choosing small stones all of the same size.

Soon, he found six of them. He’d use the other four to make a mouth for the snowman too, and he was rather pleased – until he heard the familiar loud voice from the other side of the playground. Panic took over him, and he quickly stood up, pushing the stones into the pocket of his jacket, and turning to Suoh.

“Come on! We’re being called, we have to go.” He had no idea what Suoh was trying to do, though; the way he was standing on the broken pogo ride, his fingers shaking as he tried to balance himself on top of it.

“…You go,” the reply came, but it was unsure and didn’t sound as strong as all of Suoh’s other replies.

“Don’t – don’t stand on top of that, you will fall.” What was he even thinking? These were the sort of things which got Suoh into trouble all the time, and he never understood anything he was told. It was like he _liked_ breaking all the rules. Why? The rules were there to keep them safe. Maybe he just didn’t understand that.

“I want to see what’s behind that wall…” came Suoh’s voice, and Reisi stood on his tiptoes to try and see what he meant. On one side of that dirty little backyard was a high wall against which the broken pogo ride rested.  It was taller than even all their teachers. Was Suoh crazy?

“That’s – you’ll just hurt yourself if you do that. Come, I’ll help you get down.” He stepped forward and held out a hand. If Suoh fell, he would get seriously hurt. But he didn’t even turn to look at Reisi. His hands still tried to grab the top of the wall so he could swing himself on top of it.

“You can just see the street from there,” Reisi said, louder, trying to make Suoh listen to him. “Come down. We’re going to be yelled at if we’re late.” When he said that, Suoh turned to him slowly, balancing precariously on top of that broken ride.

“You’re such a goody-two-shoes.”

Reisi turned white. Someone had said it to him again, as if it was a _bad_ thing to be. Why? Didn’t he know he would get badly hurt if he lost his balance and fell? He was just trying to help him and do the right thing, but again, even this boy hated him for it. He felt terrible. He tried to say something, but it wouldn’t come.

Finally – “Suoh – “

“OW!”

There was a loud _bang_ and _crash_ , and suddenly Suoh was on the ground, his left leg in an odd angle against that big gray spring. He had a weird expression on his face – and Reisi knew it, he knew he would fall from where he was standing. He wanted to tell him “I told you so!” but he stopped when he noticed how desperate Suoh’s face looked, and were those tears clinging to his eyelashes?

Suoh’s hands were shaking worse than ever, and he touched his leg, scrunching up his eyes. When his hand emerged, his fingers were coated in red.

 _Blood_ , Reisi realized, and he felt his own heart beating louder than ever.

He mustn’t cry. He stood there, rooted to the spot, his throat dry and not allowing him to even scream or say anything to break the painful silence. Opposite him, Suoh was struggling not to let the tears slide down his cheek as he gently tried to dislodge his blood-stained clothes from the spring. Reisi found sudden energy in his legs, and he scooted over to Suoh. He didn’t trust his hands to be able to do anything useful at this point, but after what seemed like very long, the two of them managed to pull off Suoh’s clothes from the rusty spring.

Suoh himself just sat there, gritting his teeth and clutching fistfuls of sand and snow on the ground. He must be in a lot of pain, Reisi thought, but his own brain was being stupid and wasn’t coming up with any solutions to this problem. He could feel his own eyes going wet and he tried his hardest not to look at the angry wound on Suoh’s leg, but every now and then he was overtaken by a strange fear that forced him to look at it. Through the rip in the knee of his pants, Reisi could see torn skin and several different shades of red, glistening, where a normal, brownish knee had to be. It was so abnormal. Even when he had fallen, he had never gotten hurt this badly.

By now, the tears were falling down Suoh’s face whether he liked it or not, but he was obstinately not saying anything or even asking for help.

“I – I told you not to do that!” That was all Reisi could manage to get out at first. Suoh threw him a withering glance before staring at the wound and trying to move his knee. He couldn’t without hissing in pain.

“…Go,” he rasped, and Reisi was taken aback by how strong his voice sounded even though he had just gotten himself injured. “No,” he answered, trying to be as brave about this as he was. Suoh blinked and Reisi stared right back at him. When he did that, he felt like he wasn’t so scared of him anymore.

Reisi knelt in front of him and offered his hand. “Come,” he said, “I’ll take you to the nurse’s office.”

It took Suoh very long to answer. “What? No. Just go.”

“You’re hurt! I can’t leave you like this.” Why didn’t this boy understand? Maybe that’s how the cool people were; always getting into trouble and then acting like it didn’t mean anything to them, when clearly it meant a lot. No one could be so stubborn even when their knee had been cut open.

Suoh didn’t answer, but seemed to realize that he had been crying. With dirty hands, he wiped the tear tracks away, so his face had splotches of both blood and mud on it. Reisi felt like he was going to be sick, so he tugged at his sleeve and told him, firmly, “Get up. We’re going to the nurse’s office.”

“What’s your problem…?”

Reisi faltered. “Huh? You’re – you’re hurt. You need to be helped.” Next to him, the wound oozed more glistening blood, and he backed away. Suoh seemed to have noticed that too, and he held his knee with both hands, trying to budge his other leg.

“I can help myself…” He couldn’t find the balance he needed to stand, though, and frowned. Reisi couldn’t guess if he really felt the pain or if he was just angry, but he had to feel the pain. Anyone would.

What if Suoh was seriously hurt? He didn’t want to think about it. Why did he also have to be such an _idiot_? Didn’t he so much as care for his own safety? If Reisi didn’t say something now, he would end up either crying or running away in fright.

“It’s okay to ask for help!” he shouted, clenching his fists. It was something they had all been told by the teachers and the other adults; that they could ask for help whenever they wanted, and that they shouldn’t keep their problems to themselves. Obviously Suoh didn’t understand that. “Why are you so – so stupid? You’re hurt, you have to go to the nurse’s office, or it will get really bad! Don’t you care about your own knee?” All this came out very fast, but when he was done, he realized he had been very angry.

All this while, Suoh just stared at him like he was an alien. He even forgot about his knee. Reisi stood up and turned away, because there was a strange feeling in his stomach that didn’t feel welcome at all, and he was afraid it would get worse if he looked at that nasty wound again.

“Tsk.” Reisi turned around at that sound, and saw that Suoh had a strained smile on his face as he looked back up at him. “You’re irritating…” Reisi didn’t care about any insults he threw at him, though, because he knew he was doing the right thing by wanting him to get help.

“Hmph. I’m just going to call the nurse here then,” he said, and wrenched his eyes away from Suoh’s face before pushing the gate open and running as fast as he could while being a bad runner. It was also hard to run in the snow, but when he emerged from behind the slides, he saw the lady with the loud voice with an unpleasant expression on his face. Uh-oh. They’d be in trouble now – lunchtime had already begun and they were the only ones not there.

She saw him and began to ask, as loudly as ever, where he had been and why he hadn’t come when she had called. Then her eyes flicked over to the blood on his fingertips and her voice became softer and kinder like it did when kids had problems and talked to her about them.

It took around five or six minutes for two adults to rush to the backyard and cart Suoh away. He didn’t seem very interested in so much as looking at them, and nothing they asked him seemed to get into his head. Reisi thought that was okay. He had just fallen and gotten badly injured, so there was no reason for him to be bothered about anything else when he had tried so hard to be brave. He thought that was a very grown-up thing to do, or as the adults would say, admirable.

He stood outside when Suoh was getting patched up, and didn’t feel like going to eat. Somehow, even though he was the sort of kid Reisi would never like, he found that having seen him and helped him when he was hurt made it feel like they had a special friendship that wasn’t really friendship anyway.  He didn’t understand it. But maybe since they had both helped each other, they were even.

When Suoh came out, he looked significantly fresher and also grouchier. He was limping, too. Reisi looked at him with a hard expression on his face, which Suoh countered with a completely dispassionate one.  That made Reisi ask, “Are you okay now?”

Suoh just looked at the walls as he walked, the nurse holding his hand. “Yeah,” he said. He didn’t sound like he was in pain any more. For a long while neither of them said anything. Maybe they didn’t know what to say, or how to say it. Or maybe they were fine being quiet. Then they reached the lunch hall.

Reisi quickly looked at Suoh to see what expression was on his face now, but he couldn’t understand it. He was looking ahead completely blankly, and then he suddenly snapped his head to look at Reisi, who only then noticed his eyes for the first time. They were the color of fresh honey. It was silly, so he smiled without expecting to.

“What,” Suoh said.

“Nothing!” Then he became serious again. “If you don’t care for your own safety, you’re going to be in big trouble. And I won’t help you next time.”

Suoh grinned for the first time. “Goody-two-shoes.” Reisi knew he didn’t mean it this time, so he said, “Idiot,” back. Both of them smiled.

Maybe if they were friends, then Suoh could help him find cool stuff while Reisi would make sure the two of them never got into trouble. Yeah, that would be fun. Next time, surely, Suoh wouldn’t make a mistake like this and ruin everything.

 _Next time_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please await the next chapter and thank you for reading!


	2. 16 years old

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His recklessness is bitterer than the kisses he steals from him, though.

“The accounts for November and December.” His voice was smooth and easy, but it was easy to notice the iron grip he had on the account book, like he didn’t want to relinquish it to Reisi’s control, like Reisi wasn’t the accountant anyway, so why did he have to be the one to give the accounts a final check?

“Thank you, Nagata-kun. I’ll look through them right away.” His underclassman Nagata offered a bright smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes and retreated to his seat at the very back of the room, and Reisi flipped to the pages with “November” and “December” written in large, loopy handwriting at the top, numbers and figures zooming in and out of his head. Nagata’s handiwork was certainly commendable, for in all these months of bookkeeping he had never left behind a single error in the calculations he claimed to have done only the morning before handing the accounts in. He gave the boy a quick glance, and saw his gaze immediately revert to his fingers.

He was about to compliment him on his frighteningly accurate accounting ability, when Shiba Yoko slid into the room as inconspicuously as she always did, only bringing attention to her entrance with her breathy voice.

“There’s a scuffle downstairs,” she intoned, “and I think someone is injured?” Saying so, she quietly walked to her seat.” The girl next to her asked, “But Yoko-chan, did that person get help?”

“That’s why I came here,” she said in that same dreamy half-whisper. Nearly everyone in the Student Council room gave her a look of exasperation that she seemed not to notice.

Reisi let out a small sigh and stood up, walking to the door. He knew from experience that he was easily the most intimidating out of all them, and thus stood the greatest chance of bringing any supposed scuffle to an abrupt halt. He would have liked some support, of course, but he knew better than to expect some from a Council that was primarily antagonistic to his take-charge style.

Descending the steps quickly, he arrived at one of the several doors leading outside the school building. He was met with a sharp, chilly wind that made him instinctively fold his arms together as he padded across the thin layer of snow, his eyes roving the drab scenery for any unusual tangle of limbs or sudden movement.

He didn’t encounter anything of that sort, but in his peripheral vision he registered something fuzzy and red. Of course, he should have expected to do so. Scuffles at high school often involved this particular perpetrator. Or should he say agitator? Suoh Mikoto seemed to possess an infernal presence that somehow brought the cruder sides– fear, violence, self-defense – into play in most people.

Most people, of course. He never recalled being fazed by any of that threatening aura. And Suoh knew that. While Reisi walked to him, Suoh leisurely settled himself on the ledge next to the wall of the building, laden with self-possession and completely aware that the Student Council President was striding over to him to chide him for his misconduct, but also not betraying a single trace of being bothered by that in the least.

For the briefest moment it looked like a clump of his hair was in his left hand. Then he realized it was blood, and he knew then that it wasn’t time to joke around – he definitely required medical care. The length of his strides increased even as Suoh drew a cigarette and a lighter from his pocket, held the cancer stick between his teeth and lit it. When he exhaled, his breath exited his lips in a cloud along with the smoke, which unraveled gently into the sky.

Reisi stood in front of him. “Suoh,” he said to him, his eyes darting dispassionately over the head wound that had seemed merely an extension of Suoh’s hair from far away. The person being spoken to opened one eye and let it travel idly over the speaker before closing it again. Reisi had not expected a response.

“Explain yourself.” Still no reply. “Suoh.”

His neck twitched in irritation. “Tch…” and smoke left his lips in a puff that smelled strong and pungent to Reisi’s nostrils. “Munakata… what do you want?”

“I believe I asked you to explain yourself. How did you end up in this deplorable state?”

“None of your business… _President_.” He shifted on his seat and blew the smoke right into Reisi’s face.

Reisi dispelled the noisome cloud with a practiced wave of his hand. “Oh, are we calling each other by titles now? Well, it certainly is my business when a student goes banging heads, resident ruffian.”

“Resident ruffian… huh. Not your best, Munakata.”

Reisi drew himself up. He was irked, alright, but this was no time to be engaging in idle banter. They were just fortunate that classes had all probably started and there was very little chance of them being caught sniping at each other. Nevertheless… much as he hated to think this, Suoh was probably not in any risk from the blood loss; from the looks of it, it seemed to have stopped already.

Besides, the only way he’d be able to get him up would be to subtly coerce him by talking his way there. It wasn’t an altogether unjustified procedure.

“This is hardly the time to be arguing semantics, wouldn’t you say? Follow me to the nurse’s office. Do you need help?”

“Why should I go with you?”

“You sound like a child, Suoh. Up with you. I cannot spend all day arguing.”

“Tch.” He blinked slowly and looked away into the distance. His eyes said he couldn’t care less, but Reisi noticed how he’d drawn his cigarette out from between his lips during the exchange.

He knew of a way to hasten him. “Well then, it looks like I’ll have to call the nurse here.” He drew out his PDA, and Suoh’s eyes followed it in puzzlement.

“You’re calling the nurse here,” he said, and his childish bewilderment was _almost_ something Reisi could appreciate.

“I have the number saved on my PDA.”

Suoh snorted.

“How crude. There are times when people aren’t able to make it to the nurse’s office, you know. Experience has taught me to be prepared. Of course, a goon like you wouldn’t think of anything like that - ”

“Stop, Munakata. I don’t need to be lectured on how much of a tightass you are, I already know.”

He reflexively pushed his glasses up his nose, and tsked. “Resorting to childish insults when confronted by anything you wouldn’t be able to handle more efficiently just demonstrates your level of brain development, Suoh.

“Well, what of it? Shall I call the nurse here?” He purposefully let his finger hover over the Call button. Admittedly, he wouldn’t have minded pressing it with or without Suoh’s consent, just to taste the embarrassment and irritation that would radiate from him in waves when tended to like a little kid.

Suoh stubbed out his cigarette on the ledge and abruptly stood up; blood peppered the snow as he wrung his hand a couple of times. His ego still kept him on a tight leash, after all. Reisi had to try not to break out into a smug smile, because Suoh would notice – and Suoh would be sure to pay him back rather nastily. He thought.

He let Suoh get accustomed to the ego hit before proceeding with his questions. “So what led to the injury?”

“…Beat some gang thugs up.”

He was surprisingly compliant, and Reisi was on his guard for any unpredictable mood changes.  “Really now?”

He answered with an utterly passionless stare, and Reisi nodded. “So they entered school premises?”

“Yep.” Sighing, “Started yelling about one of their boys being messed with…”

“It’s a wonder no one inside heard or saw them,” he pointed out, trying to detect a lie and then remembering that with Suoh, that wasn’t a filter that was usually necessary.

“Yeah, well, I did.” The exasperation in his tone was mounting; naturally, he wasn’t given to explanations. But Reisi needed one, and so he would have one. “They were looking for a fight, I gave them one, scared them off. What else do you want to know.”

He sounded like a train run out of steam, and some part of Reisi’s mind told him that he should be dejected or at least offended when the other party showed zero interest in conversation with him; in his defense, though, Suoh was just that interesting to piss off. Besides, he could dwell on those faces he made for hours. He’d keep _that_ to himself for as long as possible.

There was an abrupt chuckle that cut through the silence that Suoh himself had created. “Munakata, you look like a kid that’s just gotten some candy.”

“If I’m not mistaken,” he retaliated, “that’s how you look a lot of the time when confronted with violence and chaos.” He made sure to lace his retort with malice he inwardly knew would never affect Suoh. He thought. The realization came a little too late; he hadn’t properly relished the fact that Suoh had been looking at his face. Observing him, recording his expression even. He wasn’t so sure if he should have sounded so defensive.

He was overthinking, naturally. Suoh didn’t seem to have paid any attention to the muddled expression he wore now, so maybe he was just looking around and commenting on whatever caught his fancy. “Maybe you’re mistaken.”

“Maybe we just have something in common.”

Suoh was quiet for a long while; presumably gazing at the white sun against a backdrop of gray winter sky. “…huh.”

“A shame,” Reisi added, looking away. His earlier statement had almost sounded cordial.

The other male gave his characteristic rough scoff. “It’s a good thing, Munakata, isn’t it?” He did not know. The day hadn’t come when he would figure out whether Suoh Mikoto deserved the space he took up in Reisi’s head or not. There was a sudden draft of icy wind, Suoh hissed and rubbed his forehead, smearing blood over it, and Reisi had his excuse to merely glance at him in repressed concern while continuing to keep mum.

They had reached the nurse’s office, and there was someone inside it being treated. They waited outside, but mainly because Suoh had come to an abrupt halt, seized his chin and pressed his lips onto his. They were chapped and Reisi could still taste the bitterness and the remnants of burning cigarette as Suoh drove his tongue into his mouth; their only saving grace was they thrummed with warmth regardless of the weather.

They broke apart as suddenly as their mouths meshed together, and he was ever so glad that the only other room nearest to them was the staff room, and most, if not all, teachers were in class, while the others could hardly care less to see what transpired outside their room. If they had, they could have had a reason to reprimand the Student Council President. But they hadn’t. Even so, Reisi caught himself feeling like he had betrayed the trust they placed in him, consoling himself with the fact that these small deviations from the rulebook occurred only once a month or so.

“Your lips taste terrible.”

He snorted again. “You’re such a fucking princess.”

Recently he had begun wishing that the kisses they shared were a little more than simply platonic; a way to pass the time and relieve pent-up tension were all they had been until now. They had since – regrettably, in his defense – achieved the status of bittersweet guilty pleasures for him.

He didn’t notice when Suoh slid through the door until it thudded shut behind him, snapping him out of his aimless pondering. It then struck him that he had been thinking incredibly selfishly all this while. He would wait outside for him to see if he had been treated and bandaged properly, to ask him if he was alright, to walk him back to class so he wouldn’t loiter again, and he smelled inexpressibly enticing, and – he was certain that he would have to put a leash on the tangents his thoughts had begun to take recently, if only to spare himself the internal embarrassment and self-disapproval. Instead, he decided to wait because that was common courtesy.

When Suoh left the room, one look at his scruffiness and the sense of disorder that seemed to surround his person refueled Reisi with a new contempt that he was thankful for. Now he could guiltlessly attribute his runaway thoughts to his tendency to overanalyze.

Neither of them spoke anything, but his eyes routinely flicked over to the bandage on Suoh’s forehead. Perhaps if he wasn’t so foolishly impulsive and conducive to jumping into danger like the barbarian he was; perhaps if he listened to advice and learned from mistakes, they might have even been good friends.

His peers in his class would call it a crush. He called it interest spurred on by discovering someone both like-minded and completely different. The two of them walked on, and Reisi was aware of how strange it would look to someone else to see two people with so many obvious differences side by side.

It was strange, yes, but they had all been witness to it one too many times.

They reached Suoh’s class, and he lazily turned to face him, smirking. “Thank you for taking care of me, President.”

“The least I could do,” he replied, smiling in return. “Try not to cut your head open again.” _Really_. “It’s tedious having to assist you for the messes you make.”

“Eh, I’ll try.” He slid open the door and pushed it shut behind him. As Reisi walked away, he could hear the angered scolding of the teacher that Suoh was receiving, and visualized the mixture of awe and jealousy on the students’ faces as they inspected the school’s most popular delinquent back from one of his many rumored fights again.

Next time, neither of them would be rushed by impending classes or head wounds, and their kiss would be unhurried, and Reisi would be certain to smoke beforehand so Suoh too would know what it was like to kiss lips that tasted awful.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be one more chapter. Thank you for reading this story and do await the next chapter~!


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